A credit to the tax code

Republicans and Democrats don't agree on much these days, but if there's any point on which they should still see eye to eye it might be the federal earned-income tax credit. This cash supplement to wages, delivered in the form of a tax refund, was created during the Ford administration and has been gradually expanded under Republican and Democratic presidents. In 2012, it totaled $63 billion, paying an average of $2,300 to households containing 27 million people.

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